


Equinox

by luchia



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-20
Updated: 2011-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-15 19:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luchia/pseuds/luchia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Castiel is the weird time-traveling freak who just might be the love of Dean Winchester's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Equinox

The first time Dean sees him, Dean’s watching his stupid can of Coke buzz at him instead of falling down into the slot like it’s supposed to. He even paid and everything, waited for Sammy to get to sleep and a few minutes after that, so if this is karma or something it’s wrong, because he’s been about as legitimate as he can get about sticking the stupid money in the stupid machine, so he kicks it. Which, of course, does nothing. Because it’s _stupid_. All it does is hurt his foot.

“What’s the problem?” this freakishly gravelly voice asks from behind him, and Dean totally doesn’t jump, because he’s too grown up to be scared by that sort of thing. He has a gun and everything. The guy’s probably lucky Dean is in a good mood or else he’d have shot him, just like dad would.

He’s about to tell the guy to go away and be grateful Dean’s in a good mood and stuff, but when he turns around he’s looking at a man in an outfit that kind of screams the wearer’s not from around here. The guy also looks smug, but in a weird, unintimidating way. Like he got an A on a test or something.

“I’ve got it covered,” Dean tells him instead of telling him to get the hell away or else he’ll end up with a brand new bullet hole.

“What covered?” the guy asks, and actually sounds like he cares.

It actually makes Dean blink, makes him frown up at the guy’s face, because who the hell is this guy? He’s either the last nice guy on earth, or an idiot, and since Dean can’t decide which, he just moves to the side. “It ate my money and won’t give me my Coke.”

The man nods and approaches the machine like a chessboard, frowning through the Plexiglas for a moment before his hand whaps the machine in some strategic pressure point or something, because the thing stops buzzing and his can of coke drops right out for him. And then, he just backs up, giving Dean that same not-exactly-smug smile.

Dean stares at him for a while after that, but finally moves forward just long enough to grab the Coke out of the machine.

“Thanks,” he says.

The man nods, and tilts his head a little. “Are you happy?”

Dean’s kind of glad he hadn’t started drinking his can of Coke yet, because he might have spit it all over the both of them. “What?”

The man looks away, frowning at the concrete. “Are you happy here with your family?”

He actually thinks about answering the guy, toys with the idea of giving him a serious response, but instead he grins and says, “I’d be happier if I had a pony. The girls in my class go nuts just talking about them.”

Gravel-voice stares at him. “I’m not sure if that was a joke, but I’ll try to get you one.”

Dean’s mouth drops open. “I’m a boy, you idiot! Boys don’t really want ponies!”

He frowns. “Ponies are small. _You_ are small. It’s-”

“I’m not small!” Dean shouts, because yes, he’s the shortest boy in his class, but that doesn’t make him small. Sammy is small, and Dean’s way bigger than Sammy, so there’s no way he can be called small right along with Sammy. “I’m just not fully-grown yet. I’m gonna be really tall when I’m done growing!”

“Taller than most,” the man agrees, and looks like he’s smiling, even if his lips aren’t. “What’s the date?”

Dean glares at the guy. “Are you on drugs?”

“No,” the guy answers, completely unfazed by the question in a way that makes Dean think he gets asked a lot. “The date?”

He grabs onto his can of Coke a little tighter than before, because you can never trust a guy who can’t keep track of time. Never know what else they can’t keep track of. “June 16th.”

The man nods, and even though he’s looking at Dean, he can tell the guy’s not really seeing what’s in front of him. “And the year?”

Dean glares at him. “You _are_ on drugs, you liar!”

The guy frowns at him. “Dean. Please.”

“Fine. It’s 1987, you crackhead,” Dean snaps.

The man nods. “Thank you. I’ll see you in…” He hesitates, until his eyes hit the stupid machine again. “1992. June 16th.”

Dean is about to tell him he’s crazy again, but then he remembers he never even told the guy his name even though the guy used it. He’s about to pull out his gun and demand the creature tell him what’s going on, but then the guy isn’t there anymore. He’s just _gone_ , leaving Dean alone with a can of Coke, questions, and a shudder down his spine.

\---

Dean remembers the guy vividly for two years, but every single memory is hard to hold onto when he’s busy making so many others. He remembers his voice, remembers the weirdness, remembers the way the creature smiled and never seemed actually threatening.

He also remembers the date. When June 16th, 1992 rolls around, Dean’s ready. He’s told his dad, he’s got iron and salt and silver and stakes, and the guy doesn’t even show up.

“You were a kid, Dean,” his father tells him in the morning, hand reassuringly hard on his shoulder. “Dreams are hard to tell from reality when you’re a kid, sometimes.”

So, Dean tries to forget.

\---

“Hello, Dean,” the gravelly voice says, and Dean nearly runs into a pole. The only thing that saves him is, ironically, the thing that causes the entire incident. The guy grabs onto the back of his jacket’s collar without even blinking, and lets go just as soon as Dean’s aware it’s even happening. “What’s the date?”

“What the hell are you?” Dean hisses, hands clenching into fists.

The guy looks completely unimpressed. “I’ll answer your question after you answer mine.”

“September 23rd, 1992.” He can’t help but glare, can’t help the resentment. “You’re late.”

The man sighs, obviously unhappy about the answer. “I could have been later.”

Dean stares at him. “Were you _trying_ to be late?”

“Early,” the man replies, and tilts his head slightly. “You’re getting bigger.”

“And you’re supposed to be telling me what you are,” Dean points out, because he’s too old to start shouting that he’s still growing and he’s not shortest anymore and he’s only thirteen and everyone knows guys get their growth spurt later anyway.

“I will,” the man agrees. “Later.”

Dean is starting to kind of hate the creature. “Okay, how much later?”

“Sixteen years,” he states, and keeps looking around like he’s expecting something to happen. “When do you expect to be fully-grown?”

He shakes his head. “If I thought you were human, I’d be really creeped out right now.” When the guy just tilts his head to the side, genuinely interested but confused eyes meeting Dean’s, he clears his throat. “There’s legal stuff about at what age you can have sex. People asking questions like that are usually people to avoid.”

The guy nods, and looks like he’s honest-to-God filtering the information through his brain, applying new protocols and whatever like in _Terminator_. For all Dean knows, the guy actually is a robot, which might be a good thing since robots die when you melt them and a lot of the things that go bump in the night take more effort than shoving them in random factory equipment.

“I just find it uncomfortable to speak with a young version of you,” the guy says, and looks back around, still with that expectant air clinging to him. “Six years, maybe.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Dean says, and grabs onto the man’s sleeve. He expects resistance when he starts tugging the possible robot down the sidewalk and towards the motel, but instead the guy just follows right along. He isn’t letting go, though. Maybe-a-robot disappears, and he’s back to close to no credibility with his dad. “You’re answering my questions whether you want to or not. Like what the hell you meant when you called me a _young version_ of myself.”

“I’m not sure how much I should tell you,” the guy says easily, “so I’m not planning to tell you anything. You can still ask, though.”

“Well, I’m at least getting fingerprints,” Dean states, and the guy’s arm is gone. Mostly because the guy’s standing right in front of him, expression very serious, and very unhappy. He’d say angry, but the guy looks stern than anything else.

“There are things you’re not ready to know.”

He gives the guy a look that Dean knows gets _you’re shitting me_ across pretty well. “My dad hunts monsters. I think I kind of already know what’s out there by now.”

The guy shakes his head, but there’s a hint of humor in his eyes. “Which only proves my point.”

Dean glares at him, and grabs his sleeve again, heading towards the motel with just as little resistance as before. “Alright, will you at least tell me your name? Or do you creatures not have names?”

“We have names,” he says, amused. “You call me Cas.”

Dean shakes his head. “What the hell kind of name is Cas?”

“A shortened one,” Cas says easily. “I’m actually fond of it by now.”

He feels like his head’s going to explode from all the crazy shit he’s getting out of the guy. He’s from the future - _Dean’s_ future – where he knows him, but won’t tell him anything because he doesn’t know what’ll happen in the future if he does that, and the guy doesn’t even have a time machine or anything, he just has himself.

“How do we know each other, then?” Dean asks, and before Cas can frown and tell him he’s not going to answer, says “You can at least tell me that. It’s not like you’re going to destroy the future if you tell me we went to high school together or something.”

He can feel the guy hesitating, but he does talk. “We work together.”

Dean drags him across the street. The motel’s in sight, and he doesn’t know if anyone will be in the room or not, but he’s sure as hell going to make sure someone sees the guy. “We work together? Work like normal people work, or hunt?”

“I’m being vague for a reason, Dean,” Cas says, and sounds way too amused for Dean’s taste. “You’re strangely charming as a child.”

“Thirteen is not a child!” Dean shouts at him, and tightens his hold on the man’s wrist. “I’m a teenager, and I’m not done growing either, so-”

“I’m sorry if I offended you,” Cas says, and looks like he’s actually sorry. The guy’s so sincere that Dean can’t help but wonder how the hell he manages to live. “I meant it as a compliment.” He frowns. “Believe it or not, I’m not here to judge you.”

Dean frowns at him, but accepts the apology. Even though he doesn’t say a word, apparently this Cas guy knows him well enough to just know he’d forgiven him. Either that, or he can read minds. “Why are you here anyway?”

Cas stops dead in his tracks at that, his face closed off and almost scary all of a sudden. “I should go.”

“Whoa, wait, hold on.” The room is _right there_ , a little less than two hundred feet away. “At least let me show my dad that you’re real? I told him and he didn’t believe me, and I’d really appreciate if you just stopped in and said hi or something, okay?” He can see Cas wavering just a little, so he clears his throat. “Please, Cas.”

That backfires in a brand new way, since Cas freezes up entirely, body completely rigid and tense and close to pained. “Six years, then,” he says, and vanishes.

Dean starts to hate him.

\---

He’s thirteen. He doesn’t need to deal with his dad not believing him, just like he doesn’t need Sammy worrying about him, so Dean doesn’t say a damn thing about Cas.

He does start his own small journal and basic research, though. He gets one of those bound composition notebooks and starts taking notes, writing down everything Cas has told him, no matter how big or small it seems.

It leads Dean to some strange conclusions, like that he and Cas are maybe even friends when Dean’s all grown up, and that Cas doesn’t exactly have his time travel abilities down to a science yet. And that Dean’s a lot less fun when he’s older, but whatever, all adults seem that way.

Six years is 1998. Dean Winchester will be nineteen years old.

He really shouldn’t be getting his hopes up, shouldn’t stop hating Cas and start looking forward to his next appearance, but he does anyway. Because he’s stupid.

\---

Dean and Sammy are sitting around their motel’s pool eating pretzels when Cas next shows up. It’s even weirder than the other two times, since Cas is four years early and looks honest-to-God surprised to see them.

“Oh my God! Oh my God Dean-” Sammy starts, but Dean claps a hand over his baby brother’s mouth while Cas stares at them.

“You’re four years early,” Dean tells him.

Cas just keeps on frowning. “I think I’m late, actually. What’s the date?”

“July 6th, 1993. You kind of suck at this precision time travel thing, don’t you?”

Cas glares at him, but there’s no real anger at Dean in it. By now Dean can tell when someone’s pissed at their own actions instead of his. “I didn’t used to,” he mutters, and sighs. “But six years is a definite improvement.”

Which is when it clicks in Dean’s mind.

Cas isn’t traveling alongside Dean. He’s jumping in and out of Dean’s life, yeah, but he’s jumping in a different order than Dean’s living through. This Cas is from before Dean met him the first time, which is…really weird. But makes sense.

Sammy bites his hand, and Dean can’t help but pull his hand away because even at ten, Sammy knows how to bite. “Dad said you aren’t real!” Sammy blurts out, and Dean moves his other hand over his little brother’s mouth, and this time he makes sure to keep the kid’s jaw locked up with his thumb, too.

Cas tilts his head to the side. “Would it help if I spoke with him?”

Dean blinks at him, because that’s another thing he never really expected to hear from Cas. Apparently this version’s nicer than later Cas or something. “That’d be great, actually. He’s out on a job right now, but he said he’d be back around eight tonight.”

Cas looks up at the mid-afternoon sun, and Dean knows he’s going to say no, knows he’s going to just disappear again and-

Cas sits down right next to Dean, glances over, and asks, “May I have a pretzel?”

It’s surprising enough that his grip on Sammy’s mouth slackens, and Sammy’s more than happy to shove Dean’s hand away and start talking. “Do you really travel through time?”

“Yes,” Cas says, and Dean hands him a pretzel.

“What’s it like? How’d you learn to time travel?”

Cas frowns. “It’s like flying, and I’ve always known how to do it.”

“He’s not human, Sammy,” Dean points out.

“I _know that_ , Dean,” Sammy snaps, and leans over his legs to get a better view of Cas. “Does that mean you can fly? What else can you do? What are you, anyway?”

“I can fly,” Cas says. “And I’ll answer your other questions when you’re older.”

“Okay, you’ve been saying that since I was eight,” Dean snaps. “How much older do I have to be?”

Cas hesitates. “You’re thirteen?”

“Fourteen.”

“Then fifteen years,” Cas states. “Arguably.” He puts the pretzel in his mouth like it’s a piece of gum, and chews like he’s still not used to doing it, but enjoys it anyway. “Time’s difficult to explain.” He swallows. Dean passes him another pretzel.

Sammy looks about ready to crawl over Dean, ten years old or not, just to ask Cas more questions. “Do you know me in the future too?”

“Yes.” Even though they wait for some more information on that, all Cas does is start chewing his second pretzel. “I’m not going to tell either of you about the future. I’m already altering the past too much by simply being here.”

Dean frowns. “Why are you here, anyway?”

Cas looks at him. Dean notices that he has really intense, pretty eyes. The guy doesn’t say a word, but for some reason, Dean knows exactly what he was saying.

He can’t get back to his time. And for some reason, Dean starts to think he’s nothing but a practice run.

The rest of the afternoon is full of pretzels and more or less the same exact thing they’d have been doing even without Cas there, although he’s a surprisingly fun addition, since they can get the guy to do just about anything if they give him a remotely good reason to do it. They sneak into a movie theater and watch Jurassic Park for the third time, although it seems to be Cas’ first. Sam clings to the popcorn like a stuffed animal that can protect him from the bad things, and Cas watches with his mouth slightly open and a confused frown.

“That was a highly inaccurate portrayal of dinosaurs,” Cas says afterwards, walking on Dean’s right while they head back to the motel.

Dean grins at him. “If you thought that was bad, I should make you watch One Million Years BC.” He likes the idea so much he makes sure to write it down in the Cas notebook when they get back to the room. Cas glances at the notebook a few times after that, like he’s curious but actually knows well enough to not pry, but doesn’t ask to see it. Dean decides that the future version of himself has taught him well. Either that, or Cas is some kind of saint.

Sammy actually manages to drag some important information out of Cas, even though Dean’s pretty sure that neither of them realize it. His little brother asks him his favorite place to travel to, and Cas’ answer is a sort of whimsical _somewhere I can’t go anymore_ , which means there’s a limit to how and when he can go. Sammy also coerces the most monotone and uncomfortable-sounding storytelling ever out of Cas, but the thing’s about a couple office drones fighting a ghost, so it keeps his little brother entertained.

It’s oddly peaceful, until John Winchester bursts through the door with a pistol in hand, a knife sitting in easy access in his coat, and a very serious expression. He stares straight at Cas, gun straight and arm firm as he says, “Get the hell away from my sons.”

Cas doesn’t even put his hands in the air. He looks like he’s almost amused, for some reason. But he does stand, turns straight towards Dean’s father, and tilts his head to the side. “Hello, John.”

“Dad, this is Cas,” Dean says quickly. His father’s eyes flicker over to Dean for just a moment, but it’s a long enough moment that Dean can tell he believes. “He won’t tell me what he is, but I don’t think he wants to hurt anyone, and I thought you’d know what he is-”

“I’m here because you didn’t believe your son when he said I exist,” Cas interrupts, and Dean wants to smack him, because the gun’s still pointed at him and it would really, really suck if his dad shot the time-traveler before Dean could learn anything. “Dean would never lie to you about something important.”

John doesn’t lower the gun, but his finger isn’t on the trigger anymore. His face is hard, but Dean’s relieved to see he doesn’t look determined enough to kill someone in front of Sammy. “Get out, _Cas_.”

There’s a light in Cas’ eyes that makes Dean half expect him to say _or what?_ but he just blinks, long and oddly meaningful, before turning back to Dean. “You saw me in 1987?”

“Mid-June in 1987,” Dean states.

Cas nods, takes one long look at John Winchester, and vanishes. Sammy shouts and backs into the wall, their dad’s finger is back on the trigger, and Dean wonders why the hell he’s already getting used to this. The shock lasts for a few minutes, and when it’s over, John turns to Dean and demands answers.

Like always, Dean gives them.

\---

Dean’s fifteen when he realizes that every guy he’s ever messed around with has had dark hair and blue eyes. It’s the same week he first makes it intentional, dragging the student body treasurer into a bathroom stall during third period just because he has dark hair Dean can drag a hand through and blue eyes that aren’t right, but the color of his jacket makes up for it. And if Dean keeps grabbing for a tie that isn’t there, the treasurer doesn’t seem to notice.

He writes down the dates of every Cas look-alike in the back of the notebook, and gets a vicious sort of pleasure from thinking that someday Cas will know what every date means.

\---

He’s in the shower the next time he sees Cas, barely under the spray before two hands grab him by the shoulder and pull him hard out of the shower curtain. Dean’s naked and shivering and _pissed_ , but it’s Cas standing there with his hands clenched in Dean’s shoulders so he doesn’t punch him because, well, it’s Cas, and this time, Cas isn’t looking so hot.

Cas is pale, and looks absolutely terrified, blue eyes wide and flicking almost violently between Dean’s left shoulder and Dean’s face. Everything about him looks frantic, so Dean sucks up the anger and pries Cas’ hands off his right shoulder, since the left hand looks like it isn’t going anywhere any time soon. “It’s okay,” he says, because it really, really looks like Cas needs to hear something stupid and small and reassuring, no matter how much of a lie it might be. When Cas doesn’t respond, just stares and looks pale and scared, Dean pulls the second hand off and moves for the towels, wrapping one around his waist and turning off the shower.

“You’re young,” Cas says, and it sounds like that means the world is crumbling around him.

Dean nods, and grabs onto Cas’ forearm as he opens the bathroom door and ushers him into the hotel room. “It’s November 19th, 1996. I’m seventeen.” Cas is surprisingly easy to maneuver around the room, even into the hotel room’s pleather armchair. He’s also very, very quiet, the sort of quiet people get when they’ve seen something go wrong, so Dean clears his throat and forgets his plan to finish his shower and then get Cas sorted out. “When did you last see me?”

Cas looks straight at the ground. “2000.” He closes his eyes tight, and his hands press hard into the material of the armchair, like he’s being pressed into the ground with the weight of his thoughts. “I’m never going to get back to you, am I.”

He really wants to make a bad joke, maybe tell Cas he doesn’t have that far to go since Dean’s practically kneeling in front of him, wet and in a _towel_ , but he can’t bring himself to try and find the humor for his friend. “Sure you will, Cas. You just have to keep trying.”

“Of course. What else is eternity for,” Cas mutters, and vanishes.

Dean stares at the empty space for a moment.

Then, he gets Cas’ fingerprints off the chair.

\---

It takes him five months to get the chance to go to Pontiac, Illinois without anyone coming along for the ride. He’s eighteen and has a legal driver’s license and everything when he heads out with a level of determination his family usually stores up for the thing that killed Mary Winchester.

The Novak house is everything he lost fourteen years ago, which is jarring for some reason, but Dean’s a good enough liar that he doesn’t think they see it on his face when Mr. and Mrs. Novak answer the door, polite and religious and a little wary until he says he’s a friend of their son. That not-quite-lie seems to open their house’s door wide open for him, even though Jimmy is out with his best friend. They tell him Jimmy Novak’s out bowling, and Dean doesn’t have any trouble putting the Cas he knows and the Jimmy he’s going to meet together in one bowling, clean-cut young man.

When he gets to the bowling alley, he has to just stop and _stare_ at Jimmy because holy shit, he finally understands how Cas felt all those times he kept calling Dean small, because Jimmy looks tiny and goofy and infinitely more normal than Cas. It’s hard to get that seamless overlap sensation back, but Dean figures talking to the guy will help with the problem, so he sits himself down at the food stop they’ve set up and orders some fries, and watches the tiny, tiny version of Cas bowl a good game with his blond best friend.

It takes probably twenty minutes for Jimmy and his best friend to finally notice him doing a good job of being a creepy stalker, and they get in a pretty funny little fight about what to do about it. Blondie is pretty obviously anti-Dean, but in the end Jimmy just shoves him in the shoulder and heads straight for Dean, grinning and looking like he’s just fine being stalked but like you wouldn’t even need to stalk him, since he’s so damn open.

“Did you want to play?” Jimmy asks, and Dean realizes then and there that this is _not_ Cas. They don’t sound the same, they don’t act the same, they don’t even breathe the same way. All they share is a body.

But, Dean can’t help it. He grins, and knows he’s about to blow his chance with what’d probably be the next best thing to Cas. “This is gonna sounds insane, but do you have a secret twin or split personality or something?”

Jimmy stares at him for a while, only to groan and reach into his back pocket. “Aw man, alright,” he says, and Dean feels like he’s going crazy, because holy shit, Cas really is somewhere inside Jimmy? Except that’s shot to shit about three milliseconds later when Jimmy pulls out his wallet, grabs a five dollar bill, and shoves it into his best friend’s hand. “Fine, he’s crazy, you win.”

“How are you not dead from optimism?” his best friend asks, and Dean slips out of the bowling alley before the guy’s even finished the sentence, and drives nonstop back to his family.

\---

On September 24th, 1998, Cas shows up in the middle of a ghost hunt, since the ghost of Mrs. Gulch likes to tear up anyone who gets within a mile of her house at night, and they don’t know where exactly her bones are, other than _in that mile_. Sammy’s hopefully safe and sound back in the motel room, doing nerdy things like reading and calculus for homework, and Dean would rather run around the woods with a shotgun full of rock salt and lighter fluid strapped to his belt like a poor man’s pyromaniac version of Batman.

Well, usually, until things start trying to kill him.

Elmyra’s already flung him into a tree and is about ready to bite into his arm when Cas appears, and that’s more or less the end of it. Cas appears, puts a hand out in her general direction, and she’s gone. With that taken care of, the same ghost-banishing hand is offered to Dean. “Hello, Dean.”

“Hey,” Dean gets out, and the moment he takes Cas’ hand he’s back on his feet with a concerned Cas looking him over. “It’s, uh.” He blinks. “Shit. I know we’re in late September of ’98, but I can’t be more specific right now, sorry man.”

Cas gives him a short nod, looking determined. “I’m closer, then.”

Dean perks up immediately, because this is sort-of-in-Dean’s-timeline Cas, the one that’s been jumping forward through Dean’s life instead of popping up and having a nervous breakdown or something. “You’re only late by a day or so.” He grins. “That’s a cause for celebration if I ever heard one.” Cas looks fidgety – well, as fidgety as Cas can get – after that, so Dean shrugs. “Or not, whatever. Just don’t disappear on me right now, alright? I gotta tell Dad the hunt’s over.”

He hesitates for a moment, but Cas finally nods and looks away from him to observe the recently re-departed’s hunting ground while Dean heads back the way he came, calling for his dad in a way that’s as far from desperate as he can get. Hell, it might have even passed for excited. But really, could you blame him? His obsessive time-travelling friend took out a ghost by pointing at it and frowning.

His dad finds him fast enough, shotgun already held loosely in his arms instead of up and ready like usual. “You got her?”

“Well, she’s definitely taken care of,” Dean says, and shifts his weight as he clears his throat. “So you remember Cas, right?”

John Winchester doesn’t look very happy at hearing that name again, but he nods. “I remember him. Did he show up again?”

“Mid-fight,” Dean agrees uncomfortably, and shakes his head slowly. “He blew the ghost up, Dad. He just put his hand out towards her and she exploded into light. I don’t know how he did it-”

“He’s not human, that’s how he did it,” his dad tells him, and frowns, wary. “He staying around for a while, then?”

Dean shrugs. “I don’t know. Longest he’s ever stuck around is six hours, shortest was probably four minutes, so I don’t think he’ll be here for long.”

His dad nods, glancing back at where Dean came from, where he knows Cas is. “I don’t want him anywhere near Sammy.”

“Yes sir,” Dean replies immediately, even though he can’t think of a single reason Cas would want to hurt the girliest Winchester, since they seemed to get along well enough five years ago. But an order’s an order, so he obeys and trusts that his dad knows something Dean doesn’t.

His dad digs into his pants pocket and his hand reemerges with the car keys in his hand, and Dean can’t help but be surprised when he hands them over to Dean, and turns away. “It’s not that far, so I’ll walk back. And for the love of god, Dean, figure out what the hell kind of creature he is.”

“Yes sir,” Dean says again, and watches his father start towards the road for a moment before turning back and returning to where Cas is still standing, staring up through the canopy of trees and up at the barely-visible night sky. When Cas doesn’t move, Dean clears his throat, and he still keeps on staring. “You know they’re just big burning balls of gas and stuff, right?”

“To you, yes,” Cas says blandly, and finally turns to look at Dean again. His face is the same as always, body language as still as ever, but he seems looser. Not that it’s hard to be looser than the Cas who had last visited. “You’re getting older.”

Dean stares at him. “Wow. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Cas says, and tilts his head to the side. “When did you last see me, Dean?”

He shrugs. “Last time you were here.”

Cas frowns. “Then I haven’t crashed yet.”

Dean blinks. “You’re…what? What the hell do you mean, crashed yet?”

“I’m much improved from when I first got lost in your lifetime,” Cas states, and shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his trench coat. “Mostly because of you. I don’t know the month or day, but at some point in the year 2000, I will be dying, and I will need you to save me.”

The last eleven years weigh on him for some reason, like Cas just threw everything he’s done since he was eight on top of Dean’s shoulder and told him to go swimming. “Dude, you blew up a ghost with a frown. How the hell am I supposed to save you?”

Cas sighs, and it’s one of the most human sounds Dean’s ever heard. “I don’t know how you saved me. I wasn’t conscious for much of the time, and when I came to I was too frantic to pay any attention.” He pauses, looking Dean straight in the eye. Cas doesn’t do that very often, and the intensity of it is like a punch in the stomach. “I’m sorry, Dean. I wish I didn’t put this weight on you.”

“But you don’t die,” Dean blurts out. Cas frowns like he doesn’t understand what the hell Dean’s saying, and Dean grabs him by the shoulders. “You don’t die, Cas. You’re here right now, so you don’t die, right? Because for you it already happened.”

Cas looks down, looks away from Dean. “Time doesn’t work like that. I’m not a fixed point, Dean.”

“Because you can travel through time? Then stop traveling.”

“No,” he says, and looks back at Dean. “I’m not a fixed point because of what I am.” His expression darkens. “And who I am.”

Dean drops his arms and glares at Cas, determined to be angry instead of scared. Anger’s a hell of a lot more productive. “Which isn’t Jimmy Novak,” Dean states. “And Jimmy’s a nice guy, so why the hell are you wearing him?”

Cas shakes his head, stepping away and tensing up all over again. “I’m not going to have this conversation twice, Dean. I’m not going to justify myself to you over and over again just because-”

“And why the hell is it me?!” Dean shouts, and Cas’s head jerks up to stare at him, eyes wider than he’s ever seen. “Why the fuck are you following my timeline, Cas? Why is it _me_ you’re stuck to? What kind of sick brain do you have to pick me-”

“It’s you because you’re Dean Winchester,” he states, and Dean has to swallow the sudden burst of fear when he notices how pissed off Cas looks. “You’re not the Dean Winchester I know, not yet, but some day you will be, and you will _not_ insult the man you’ll be some day.”

Elmyra’s forest goes dead quiet as they stare at each other.

“I’ll see you in another six years,” Cas says quietly, and Dean doesn’t even think about it, just grabs onto his shoulders and glares at him and bets on Cas’ magical disappearing act not working when there’s someone holding onto him.

“What are you, Cas?” he hisses. Cas looks genuinely afraid, even though Dean knows it’s not his grip or the fact he’s ready to punch Cas if he gets too annoying that has him scared. Hell, Dean’s scared too. “What are _we_ , in the future?”

Cas is close enough that Dean can feel his breath on his cheek, can see the veins in the whites of his eyes. “Dean, don’t.”

“Don’t what?” he snaps. Dean’s taller than him now, even if it isn’t by much, and it feels good to be able to loom just a little bit. “Demand the answers you’ve been promising me for eleven years after you tell me you might die in two?” He shakes Cas, and he’s surprised it actually shakes him, that Cas isn’t some immoveable object obeying its own laws. “What are you, and why do you care so much about me? Who will I be that’s so worth risking your life for?”

Cas puts a hand on his left shoulder, and bends forward just enough to press his forehead against Dean’s. “You will be who you are now,” he says quietly. “But you’ll have gone through three types of hell and come out the better for it. You will break, and you’ll mend yourself into someone a little different than you were before, and you’ll be the cause of every valuable lesson I’ve learned in the past fourteen millennia.”

It gets harder and harder to breathe as Cas tells him more about their future relationship than Dean ever really thought he’d get, and most of it’s in the way Cas says it. The words paint a picture that scares Dean in ways he’s not excited to think about, ways that remind him of breakfast nooks and hand-holding. And it’s way, way too much.

He swallows down the anxiety, moving away just enough to not breathe in Cas anymore. “Cas, I-”

Cas drops his hand and slides backwards, Dean’s hands falling from him just as smoothly. He takes a long look at Dean that makes him feel like a broken sword. “You may be Dean Winchester, but you’re not him yet.”

This time, when Cas vanishes, Dean could swear he feels something thin and smooth sliding over him.

\---

It takes Dean a couple months to come to terms with the whole thing where he has a magical time-traveling boyfriend who’s been kind of stalking him since he was eight, but when he gets that out of the way he still has to figure out how the hell that _boyfriend_ thing works. He’s done the whole dating thing, but never long-term, never serious like time-traveling-for-eternity-for-the-significant-other serious. Which is probably pretty hard to beat on the serious level of a relationship.

So he gets in his car – _his_ car now – and drives. Five states, five days, that’s his whole plan. Even that ends with him shockingly content just staying in bed with someone warm after some very, very satisfying sex.

He thinks he could maybe see the appeal in a long, stable relationship after that.

And then the reality of what Cas had told him, the part where Cas could _die_ and he could potentially be doing it very, very soon, took hold in his heart and his head.

Hospitals and dispatch centers around the country started getting unexpected recruits who looked very, very similar.

\---

It’s a vicious March in 1999, when none of the monsters will stay dead and Sammy’s threatening to leave and go to college after he graduates, when he next sees Cas. It’s not the man he was last time he saw Cas. It rarely is, plus that one makes sure to prophesize his arrival six years in advance, so the frustrated, heavy-breathing one he’s face to face with on the 20th isn’t exactly a big surprise. Twelve years of time-traveler encounters will do that to you.

“It’s March 20th, 1999,” Dean says, since Cas is just looking around the diner’s parking lot like a lost puppy more than anything else. When Cas looks at him, Dean can’t help but thing _well shit_ , because he’s pretty sure he knows where this Cas just came from. The water stains are a big clue.

Cas glances around before walking straight at him, way too far into Dean’s personal space, and saying, “This is wrong. Again.”

He takes a deep breath. “I know, I’m not the Dean you’re looking for, and this isn’t the year you were aiming for, but you’ll be fine. Where are you trying to get to?”

“May 6th, 2010, 3:22PM,” Cas states immediately, eyes fiery. “I’ve been trying for a while. And I have to be exact, or else you might die.”

Dean makes sure to file that little tidbit away, and shrugs. “Well, you could always try precision jumping back to when I was eight again.”

Cas frowns, head tilting to the side. “You’re suggesting I practice.”

Dean nods. “Yep. Practice makes perfect. You get better and better at it, and then you’ll jump to my imminent death no problem.”

The now ex-frantic Cas actually smiles. It’s an honest-to-god smile, and Dean’s too busy staring at his smile to appreciate the tiny kiss Cas places on the corner of his mouth, just pressing his lips to Dean’s skin for a moment before vanishing all over again, making it the shortest of all visits, and probably the most confusing.

\---

With Sammy gone, Dean has plenty of time to research old problems like What Is Cas, and plenty of places without nearby high schools to do it in. Weirdly enough, it’s the librarian at a tiny charter school library that gives him the final clue.

At first he just thinks she’s some super-religious nut with a fetish for fluffy cherubs and stuff, until she frowns at him, heads into one of the three rows of books, and comes back with a book that looks old, dusty, boring, and very, very reputable. She slides it across the small table she’s situated Dean at, and opens it up to page five for him before heading back to help one of the young students find the newest Harry Potter book or something. Dean doesn’t notice much, since he’s trying to deal with the fact his future gay boyfriend is an _angel_. And when he flips to the rows and rows of names and descriptions in the back of the book – and isn’t that a reminder of things he doesn’t want to admit right now – he smirks.

Cassiel. Angel of Thursday.

“I’ve got you now, you feathery son of a bitch,” Dean mutters proudly to himself, and gives the book back to the librarian.

\---

Dean never thought he’d _dread_ the new millennium, but the moment the ball drops, it’s the year he has to save Cas. He doesn’t know when it’ll be, he doesn’t know what he’s going to be saving him from, and he doesn’t even know if it’s going to be something he can actually help with. The guy’s an angel for fuck’s sake, how the hell is Dean supposed to fix something an angel can’t?

His resolution is to stop drinking for the whole year, 21st birthday or not, and it’s more like a plan of action than a resolution, because there’s no way in hell he’s going to intentionally impair himself when Cas could drop out of nowhere and explode in front of him if he doesn’t cut the right wire on the bomb attached to him or something. His life doesn’t revolve around Cas’ imminent peril, and he still has time to resent Sam’s plan to get the hell out of Dodge when he graduates and hunt monsters and obey his dad and go have non-alcoholic fun, but it’s always in the back of his mind.

This is the year that Cas isn’t unbreakable. This is the year Dean has to be the one who can show up and take away whatever’s plaguing Cas, everywhere on the scale from murderous ghosts to a bitchy coke machine. Dean’s holding Cas’ life in the palm of his hand, and the thought is even scarier than the fact the guy will probably end up being the love of his life. Put the two together, and it could drive a man to drinking.

And that’s exactly why he doesn’t.

\---

It’s May 6th.

Of course it’s the actual May 6th, because he’d calculated May 6th 2010 out to be somewhere closer to May 3rd and his math’s always been shitty, which means he spent an entire day hanging around a hospital’s bouncy castle birthday party looking like a pedophile for nothing. Not that he really even has time to think about that when Cas appears right in the middle of the motel parking lot at somewhere around eight in the morning and starts dripping blood from just about every pore in his body and what seems like thin air, but Dean’s pretty sure are the angel wings. And from where the splotches of blood are landing on the asphalt, he’s guessing those things are huge.

He manages to stand for the same amount of time it takes Dean to drop the cup of coffee he’d run off to get and scream Cas’ name, and then Cas is on his hands and knees, vomiting blood and shaking and, weirdly enough, glowing a little more with every drop of blood. Considering the amount of blood, Dean’s surprised he’s not lighting up the entire town and shining the overcast out of the sky. Probably the worst part about the glow is that it hurts to look at, like looking at the sun too long.

Dean drops to his knees right in front of Cas’ face, pulling off his jacket so he can pull of his shirt and start checking out what’s really going on underneath all the blood. “Hey, I got you, Cas,” he whispers harshly, hearing someone in the background shout to call 911, which is a good fucking idea even if it won’t do anything to stop the glowing or what seems to be two massive puncture wounds on his invisible wings, one each, and from what he read, probably cripplingly painful. He finds the place on his shoulder blades that the invisible wings connect, and they’re soaked with blood, so Dean starts stripping down Cas’ upper half.

Cas doesn’t help though, since all he can do is keep his eyes and mouth closed and pant and choke and cough and vomit. The only other thing Dean can tell he’s doing is keeping an arm hooked around Dean’s neck, and Dean refuses to think about the wetness he feels trailing down his chest, instead concentrating on using the fabric to try and at least help the gouges clot.

“Christ, Cas, what the hell happened to you?” Dean grates out, and Cas presses closer, shaking even harder, stretching the wounds even more. “God. Okay, they’re gonna call the hospital but I need you to tell me-”

Cas coughs light into the air, and the sound he makes during it makes Dean hug him tightly, wounds or not.

“Keep me,” Cas says, garbled and disgusting and hurting in ways Dean had thought he’d never have to feel again.

For some reason, he laughs. “God, Cas, you have no idea how bad I want to keep you, but you’re kind of a free spirit you know?”

Cas squeezes a bit tighter, and Dean feels like he’s being crushed in some blood-slick pressure trap. “Keep me here,” he chokes out, choking on more light than anything else, and Dean has no idea what to do, because he just realized that the body isn’t him. The body’s that Jimmy kid. Cas is the _light_ that’s brightening and brightening out of his barely-open mouth.

It’s so bright Dean has to shut his eyes, and he’s so desperate he actually considers praying because he doesn’t want Cas to die, especially in Dean’s arms with his shirts soaking up what seems like more blood than there should even be in the human body. Except he’s not human, he’s an angel, and he’s light, and he’s pouring out of Jimmy Novak’s mouth.

He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes, just long enough to see where everything’s positioned before he goes blind in the process, and there’s no time to wait, so he doesn’t. He leans down, moves Cas’ head right towards his, and seals his mouth as tight as he can around Cas’ slack lips. The moment the light can’t get out of his mouth anymore, he can feel his teeth bleaching white from the light and his taste buds start to sizzle, lips desert dry and every tiny bit of spit he has is incinerated, but he doesn’t catch on fire. He doesn’t explode, and the light hasn’t gotten any worse from the other side of his eyelids.

It’s like kissing a rag doll, like holding a dead body close and dear, but he can feel the light that is Cas, taste the fire of him, hear the pure silence of him, like the lack of sound right after a deep resounding call from a church bell. It hurts more than anything else he’s ever felt, but it’s worth the pain, for Cas and the burning ecstasy he’s sure will drive him insane if he doesn’t do something, and do it soon.

He breathes back into Cas, pushes him forward, and it feels like throwing himself into molten steel when he forces his charred tongue into Cas’ slack mouth, hands clenching hard enough in Cas’ shoulders that he’ll probably have a very strange set of bruises there in the morning.

And then, the light’s gone. The pain goes with it, and all he has left is an insanely pained mouth and what he’s fairly sure is nothing but Jimmy Novak held tight against him.

He doesn’t remove his mouth from Cas’ until the paramedics pull him away.

\---

When he wakes up, he’s in a hospital bed with gauze wrapped around his mouth and tied shut, a note in his hand that reads _Your mouth is gagged to keep the burn treatments in place. Please do not remove the bandages or try to speak. The button used to call a nurse is on your bed to the left._ Dean can’t even remember falling asleep or passing out, or even getting dragged into an ambulance right along with Cas.

Luckily, Cas is in the bed right next to him. He looks like shit, but he’s alive, and Dean finally feels like he can breathe again – through his nose, but it’s still breathing – and he doesn’t regret possibly ruining his mouth for the rest of his life for even a second, because Cas is _alive_.

“Looks like you tried to eat a grenade,” a very amused voice says, and he turns to see a shortish but solid bown-haired man in scrubs smirking at him. Dean knows he’s not a nurse, though, even though he couldn’t explain why for the life of him. “Very stupidly heroic, Dean. Very…you.”

Dean really wishes he could talk, because he wants answers and he wants to insult the guy, but he has white bandages wrapped around his mouth so he settles for giving the guy the finger. It doesn’t do much, though, since the guy grins. “This is fantastic. I should have gagged you years ago.” Dean glares at him, so the man shrugs. “Alright, I’ll show you some mercy. I’m an acquaintance of Cas’ and I’m here to heal your mouth and wipe your memory and let you live the rest of your days just like they were before Castiel here got stabbed in the wings.”

He jerks upright in bed, and he wants to find some way to protest, but all he has is a note telling him to not talk, which he can’t help but obey because nurses make gauze impossible to remove without a blade and they always make sure to not give patients something useful. There’s a pen on the nightstand though, a pen and a tablet of paper, and he grabs it fast enough that his IV jerks hard in his hand, but he doesn’t care. He tosses the pen cap to the side, and writes in big, angry letters, _HELL NO._

The guy just keeps on smiling. “Seriously, should have gagged you years ago. And I’m doing it whether you want me to or not. The only question is when.”

 _NEVER_ Dean writes, and after the guy just quirks an eyebrow up and looks at him with a face that tells him it isn’t going to compromise, Dean thinks, tries to get through the haze of the sedative, and manages to come up with the date. _10/25/04_

The man frowns. “That’s a lot more time than I’m willing to wait around for.”

Dean glares at him. _THEN TIME TRAVEL THERE_.

He rolls his eyes. “I do have more important things to do than jump around and save your sorry ass from yourself, you know.”

Dean glances over at Cas and swallows his pride. _PLEASE_.

For some reason, that’s the thing that gets the most reaction from the guy. He frowns, looks over at Cas, and his frown deepens when he looks back at Dean, crossing his arms and looking deeper into Dean than he’s really comfortable with. “Alright, but I’m going to be there at noon, and I’m not even going to give you a chance to complain. Noon, and I’m going to erase your memory, no matter what you’re doing.”

Dean nods, bites down the bile creeping up his throat because that’d be a world of hurt if he tried to throw up, and holds up the words _THANK YOU_.

The man walks over to him and puts a hand over his mouth. It tingles, but that’s all, and the man steps back. “You’ll heal perfectly now. Don’t waste it.”

He nods and points at the _THANK YOU_ again.

“ _Years_ ago,” the man mutters, and walks out the door.

\---

The next time Dean wakes up, Sammy’s sitting in the chair next to him and doing homework like the nerd he is. Since Dean’s mouth is still covered by gauze and stuffed with burn ointments and antibacterial stuff (or he’s assuming so), he shifts and waves at Sammy. His brother just about throws his books away, twisting to glare at Dean as he hisses, “What the _hell_ did you think you were doing, you idiot?!”

Dean rolls his eyes and turns back to grab the pen and tablet again, noticing that Cas is looking a little less bloody and he’s missing a couple pages of angry and desperate words. _SAVING CAS_ he writes.

Sammy just keeps on glaring. “He burnt your mouth like a bad steak, Dean.”

Dean wants to smile, because he really doesn’t care about the slowly-increasing pain in his mouth as long as Cas is still around. But there’s still the annoying gauze, so he shrugs and points to _SAVING CAS_ again.

Sammy throws his hands up in the air. “There’s a chance you might never speak again, and you’re acting like you don’t even care!”

 _I’LL GET BETER_ Dean writes quickly, realizes he made a kindergarten spelling mistake, feels like an idiot, and adds another T. It does wonders for Sammy, though, since he’s back to feeling like a smart little snot, Dean can tell.

“And you’re really okay with this?” Sammy asks, frowning and empathetic and probably a minute away from putting a hand on Dean’s arm and telling him stuff about wife beating and stuff. He _does_ smile after that, and immediately regrets it, hand grabbing at his mouth as pain slams into him. “Oh shit, Dean! I’ll get the nurse, hold on.”

Sammy goes out at something closer to a run than a brisk walk, and the moment the nurse shows up she pushes a nice button on Dean’s IV, and it takes him just a moment to think that the nurse is a wonderful woman before passing out again.

\---

The days keep passing. Dean’s mouth gets better, Sam’s grades stay the same, and every day Cas seems to get a little more color back. Everyone’s amazed by Dean’s rate of recovery and the fact he’s probably going to have a fully functioning and, if Dean can say so, awesomely talented mouth again. And, when they decide to let him out, Dean convinces Sammy to help him smuggle Cas out along with them.

It’s kind of creepy how easy it is to steal a guy from the hospital.

They set him up in Dean’s bed in the hotel, and Dean keeps the wheelchair so he can wheel Cas around outside, and Dean doesn’t hunt for an entire month just keeping his still-healing mouth mostly unused (which really sucks) and keeping Cas in eyeshot, just in case the year 2000 isn’t done beating the shit out of him. Cas doesn’t need to eat or drink, which makes him a lot easier to take care of, and Dean’s just fine with sharing a bed with a catatonic angel.

He seems to perk up when July rolls around, and it’s the middle of a bland weekday when Dean’s eating a bagel and watching TV when Cas lurches out of bed, grabs Dean by the throat, and slams him down into the mattress. He feels like his eyes are going to explode, but it only lasts a moment, Cas staring down at him pale and frantic and scared, so Dean wraps a hand around his jaw and says, “I’m not your Dean, but I am Dean Winchester, and I’m taking care of you.”

Cas’s confusion seems to grow, but the fear seeps away as he stares down at Dean. “You’re so young.”

Dean smirks, because last time Cas had told him he was getting old, but instead of mocking the obviously (and reasonably) unhinged angel he says, “I’m 21, dude. Age is relative.”

Cas rolls to the side, but doesn’t stop staring at him. “I need to get back to you. To my you.”

He’s tempted to say something sappy about how every Dean is his Dean, always has been and always will be, but instead he nods. “I know. I’m going to die or something, right?”

That was obviously the wrong thing to say, since all the color drains out of his face. “No,” he whispers out, obviously terrified, and suddenly Dean’s holding nothing but air.

Dean’s seen that face before, that exact expression that Cas left with on his face, so Dean goes and takes the shower seventeen-year-old him never got to finish, and trusts in the other times he’s had Cas to treat him right and help him find his way home.

\---

In 2002, Dean sits in a bar, talking to a brilliant, sassy, beautiful woman. Sure, he wants to fuck her, but the best part is that even talking to her is great, that he actually wants to spend time with her that isn’t in bed. He shakes his head, grinning, and tells her, “I think you might be the most interesting I’ve ever met.”

She grins, like she thinks it’s a line even though Dean’s telling her the truth and she can’t decide which it is, and holds out her hand. “I’m Cassie.”

“Cassie,” Dean repeats, and laughs just a little bit, because _of course_ that’s her name. Of course it is.

\---

Dean spent the last couple sixths of May sitting in his motel room being on edge from things he isn’t sure are really going to happen, but it’s been three years now since he’s seen Cas, and for some reason Dean thinks he isn’t going to show up until their appointment in 2004, so Dean goes driving to wherever he feels like and swears to himself he’s not going to think about either of them dying.

At 1:30 in the afternoon, Dean slams on his breaks in the middle of a mostly-deserted rural route, because Cas is standing in the middle of the road, hands in his pockets, back straight, perfectly healthy. Dean doesn’t quite jump out of the car, but he does stumble when his feet hit the pavement because he’s moving so quickly towards him. “Cas, what are you-”

“I’m going now,” Cas states, and when he looks at Dean there’s something surprised in his eyes, even though it vanishes in a moment. But there’s something else in his eyes now, even though Dean doesn’t have a clue what it is. “I wanted to say goodbye, just in case.”

“Don’t go,” Dean blurts, because he’s an idiot. Cas stares at him like he doesn’t know what the hell to do, so Dean decides to just screw everything and takes the final step towards him, wraps a hand around him to cup the back of his head, and swallows down the anxiety as best he can. “Just go the normal way through my timeline with me, nice and slow. Don’t go running to when you could die.”

“I can’t let you down,” Cas whispers. “And it’s more than your life that we’re fighting for, Dean. It’s everything.”

“I’m a selfish son of a bitch and you know it,” Dean says, and Cas kisses him. It’s nothing like the pain of the first (most recent? Second?) kiss, and it’s not just a thoughtless show of grateful affection like the second (first? Earliest?), it’s a genuine kiss, even though it’s soft and quiet and not a little bit sad. It’s an obvious goodbye, and Dean wishes it’d never happened and that it’d never stop all at the same time.

Cas pulls away, and steps away, and Dean knows he’d give anything to have the ability to lasso Cas to Dean’s timeline and keep him by his side. “I’m sorry I never understood you’ve always been the Dean Winchester I know,” he says quietly.

“Please don’t go,” Dean says, voice hoarse. “Please.”

He can tell Cas is hesitating, but that’s never enough. His posture straightens, and he looks straight inside Dean’s soul, but he can still see there’s some regret in Cas, that he really does wish he could do as Dean is asking, but there’s another version of him out there that needs Cas. Another version that will die without him, instead of just feeling like he will.

“Goodbye, Dean,” Cas, Castiel the angel, says, and goes off to the Dean Winchester he knows and loves.

Early afternoon or not, Dean finds the nearest bar and drinks himself into oblivion before the clock strikes six.

\---

Of course, there’s one more meeting with Cas.

He’s got the hang of his stabbed-to-hell wings back, since he shows up on September 24th, 2004, at 11:35PM. And even after having a year and a half to get used to the fact Cas is going to show up again only to go back and say goodbye before whatever happens this night, Dean still feels like punching him, knocking him out, tying him up and putting him somewhere to keep Cas from flying off to the fight that breaks Cas for nearly three months. He’s had a year and a half to realize that he really doesn’t give a shit about whatever _everything_ they’re fighting for and he’s just fine with the future Dean Winchester, the future _him_ , biting the big one if it keeps Cas safe.

He hasn’t figured out how to do it, though, so he starts with what he always does. “It’s the right day,” Dean says. “Right hour even, as far as I can tell.”

Cas, however, hasn’t said a damn thing. He’s staring at Dean like he’s never seen him before. “You’re you,” Cas finally says, like he’s discovered gold or something. “You’re almost you.”

Dean doesn’t sigh, because for Cas, this is a revelation, and he’s not going to take that away. He nods, holds his arms to the side, and says, “I’ve always been me. Always have been, always will be.” He’s still staring, so Dean figures it hasn’t sunk in yet. He sits down on the edge of the bed, and waits for it to click.

It’s pretty obvious when it clicks, because all of a sudden Cas reaches forward and drags Dean’s mouth against his and they’re kissing, Cas frantic and desperate while Dean does his best to keep up and try to figure out if this is going to hurt more when Cas leaves again than he’s willing to deal with, or if it’s worth the pain. The noise Cas makes when he finally, _finally_ gets a hand into his hair makes the decision for him, because it is needy and lost and breathless, and it’s also stupidly hot.

He’s been waiting for ten years to touch Cas, fucking look-alikes and maybe even falling in love with a woman whose name is only a syllable or two away from Cas, since that was the only way he could feel even a little bit faithful. He’s been dreaming and imagining and fantasizing since he was fourteen – hell, maybe even earlier than that – and even with all that preparation, there’s no way he could ever have prepared for the sheer feelings he gets just from Cas’ mouth on his, Cas’ hand moving across his body. His stupidly mussed hair, his delicately calloused but strong fingers, his chapped and adoring lips, Dean wants them all, and he is absolutely amazed that Cas is willing to give them to him. He’s been fantasizing about Cas since he hit the big push of puberty, and every single one of them is blown out of the water by the real thing.

\---

When he wakes up, Cas is there, naked with an arm slung over Dean’s waist and his face smashed into Dean’s pillow. He’s also sleeping, which sends a pang of fondness through him, and he’s kind of shocked that Cas even needs to sleep, not to mention that he’s _still with Dean_.

He pokes Cas in the shoulder.

Cas swats at him.

“Holy shit, you’re really still here,” Dean says, a lot louder and a lot happier than he meant to, and Cas’ eyes open to stare at him. After a bit of staring, Dean realizes he’s grinning wide enough to hurt. “Morning, hot stuff.”

Dean thinks it’s hilarious, what with Cas burning his mouth to mutilated remains a few years back when they had their first-maybe-second-kiss, but Cas just keeps on staring.

“What day is it?” he asks, and Dean’s good mood slips a little, but not too much.

“September 25th, 2004,” Dean tells him with a grin. “Am I gonna have to wait six years to see you again?”

Cas smiles with his face, not his mouth, and Dean loves seeing it every time he does. “A little less, actually.” He rolls and sits up, and Dean does his best not to laugh at the front of his hair sticking straight up and out and looking even messier than Dean’s seen before. He tilts his head to the side while Dean keeps a hand over his own mouth. “Or more. Time is relative.”

“Of course it is,” Dean says, and finally gives up and just combs Cas’ hair down to something that looks a little more respectable than the blatant just-fucked bed head of before. And as nice as it is to know all those things are true, Cas looks appreciative when he’s done. “You hanging around today?”

“Perhaps,” Cas says, which in Dean’s head means _yes_ , so he grins some more and leans in to give Cas a quick kiss before hopping in the shower. And if the short kiss turns into a long kiss and the long kiss turns into making out like horny teenagers and the making out turns into groping and handjobs and even more of a mess, hey, he’s not going to complain. He still gets in the shower afterwards.

When he gets changed and out of the bathroom, because he is determined to get Cas to go do something stupid and mundane and fantastic with him, Cas is gone, and there’s a faint hazy memory of the guy who’s standing in front of him. Shortish, brown hair, smug-ass smirk.

He looks at the clock, sees where it’s glowing out a red _12:00_. He looks back at the man, and feels the color drain out of his face when he sees the notebook in his hand.

“Say goodbye,” the man says, and Dean doesn’t have a chance to do anything other than think _oh god no_ before two fingers press against his forehead and everything goes a weirdly soothing black.

\---

Dean is sprawled on the floor of his motel room and has no idea why.

“Dean?” a gravelly voice calls out, and Dean blinks up at a hazy man’s face. “Are you alright?”

He frowns at the face. “Who the hell are you and why are you in here?”

The hazy man’s face changes a little somehow, and Dean thinks he’d probably be able to tell what was different if it weren’t for the blurry vision, but then the guy just disappears. Poof.

Dean groans, realizes he’s dealing with probably the worst hangover he’s ever had, and falls back to sleep.

\---

Cas didn’t lie.

It’s six years until Dean sees him again, but you could easily argue that it’d been much, much longer.

He doesn’t remember any of it, any of it at _all_ , until it’s May 6th, 2010, and Dean watches the devil take out the angel-killing sword that Castiel’s been using for the right reasons straight out of Cas’ hands. Dean doesn’t know how Cas manages to dodge the killing blow, ducking down just fast enough that Lucifer hits the air above Castiel’s head instead of his body, and Dean feels his heart start to beat again.

It only lasts for a moment, though, since Castiel screams and starts to bleed and Dean can see the light of him start to seep out of his vessel. Lucifer sighs and sets the sword down on the ground, grabbing onto Castiel’s shoulder. “I should kill you, but we’re kindred spirits whether you want to admit it or not.”

Useless or not, Dean grabs the sword off the ground and holds it against Lucifer’s throat. “You leave him alone.”

“Dean, don’t,” Sam chokes out from where he’s trapped against the wall, but Lucifer doesn’t even listen to him, doesn’t pay any attention to the pleas from the only human he’s ever actually cared about, and sets his other hand on Castiel’s forehead.

Cas vanishes, and Lucifer turns and slams Dean into the floor, setting the sword to the side again before he wraps a hand around Dean’s throat. “I can’t figure out why I haven’t just killed you yet.”

“Lucifer, please,” Sam pleads, and the devil looks over at him. “Please don’t kill him.” Lucifer nods, only to turn back to Dean with a smile.

“Ah, right. Sam’s why.”

This entire attack was stupid, but it was either this or watch the devil burn all of North America save wherever the Winchesters happen to be, so Dean doesn’t feel like he’ll regret dying. Sure, there’s some things he wishes he could have done – like kill the devil, for one – but there’s also personal stuff, like finally tell Cas he loves him instead of using words like _fond_ and stuff, and set Sam up with a chick who isn’t evil and watch them get married and have kids, and make Bobby one of those hoverchairs like Professor Xavier in X-Men has.

That’s what he’s thinking about when the sword’s blade suddenly appears and goes straight through Lucifer’s throat, stopping barely an inch from Dean’s nose. It withdraws just as quickly, taking Lucifer’s hand and body with it while the entire room starts to glow, bright and powerful and terrifying, and Dean shuts his eyes just in time to avoid them burning up in the light of the devil’s death.

When he opens his eyes, Cas is staring at him in a whole new way, which Dean didn’t really think was possible. He swallows, looks down at Nick’s corpse, and looks back at Dean when he pulls a battered old bound composition notebook out of his coat and hands it over. “This is for you,” he says.

Sam manages to get past staring at Nick’s dead body and looks over, just as confused as Dean is about the notebook, so Dean opens up to the first page and stares at his own young handwriting giving a physical description of Castiel, big bold letters giving him the image of some looming time-traveling freak, and some part of him goes _that’s wrong, he never loomed_.

And that part’s been him all this time, just suppressed, and he’s ridiculously happy to get it back.

He’s staring at Cas when Sam finally clears his throat. “Well? What’s it say?”

“It says Castiel’s this time traveling freak who’s the love of my life and stuff,” Dean says, and flips the page, showing Sam the ridiculously awful and childish sketch of a man who looks a lot like Cas.

Sam takes the notebook from him, eyebrows raised, and starts flipping through, seeing the years pass through the pages. “Oh, is that all?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, and grins at Cas. “I know what you mean. No big surprise, is it?”

“Not at all,” Sam says.

And Cas smiles just for Dean. He smiles with his eyes, and his face, and everything he is.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for "Equinox by Luchia"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6166687) by [PeggyStarkk (LupusUlulans)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LupusUlulans/pseuds/PeggyStarkk)




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